Unable To Represent Constituency In Parliament Due To Costs Imposed: Jailed J&K MP Engineer Rashid Tells Delhi High Court

Jailed Jammu and Kashmir MP Engineer Rashid on Wednesday told the Delhi High Court that he was unable to represent his constituency (Baramulla) due to the condition imposed on him to pay daily costs to attend the parliamentary session.

Senior Advocate N Hariharan made the submission before a division bench of Justice Vivek Chaudhary and Justice Anup Jairam Bhambhani in Rashid's plea seeking modification of an order passed by a coordinate bench on March 25 asking him to deposit ₹4 lakh (approx) with the jail authorities, so as to attend the Parliament while being in custody.

At the outset, Justice Chaudhary queried Hariharan that the plea was in the form of seeking revision of the order and cannot be for modification of the condition imposed.

Senior Advocate Siddharth Luthra representing NIA said that the order passed by the division bench was a consent order to which Rashid had agreed.

Hariharan however rejected the contention and said that he agreed to Rashid being allowed to attend parliament in custody and not to pay the amount imposed by the Court.

“What was argued was custody parole. This was the condition imposed by the Court. No argument was made in relation to the expenses as such,” he said.

To this, Justice Bhambhani told Hariharan that whenever custody parole is granted by the Court, expenses are ordinarily borne by the person seeking the relief.

“We referred to the Supreme Court order (in Tahir Hussain case) and had put certain conditions. Apart from the legal issue which is raised by Justice Chaudhary, question is some expenditure is computed by the State. How does that become justiciable before us? If the State says they need x people to man, how can we decide it here?,” the judge said.

Hariharan submitted that the condition to pay daily costs is unjust and unreasonable because Rashid is the elected representative of people of a parliamentary constituency and is unable to represent them due to inability to pay the same.

“If the condition imposed is such that he is unable to go (to the parliament), we are interfering with the basic elements of democracy in this country. This kind of situation where the State urges this… Here is a situation when I took the oath, the State never asked for expenses. These are conditions imposed to somehow see to it that the voice of my constituency is not heard there,” he said.

Hariharan added that the State did not even ask for the expenses when Rashid was allowed to go to the parliament on second occasion and the same was done only on the third occasion.

He further submitted that the plea does not amount to a review as the said cause was not argued before the coordinate bench.

“Interim bail was argued. We agreed to custody parole and conditions were imposed. It is not the review of the order but only the modification of the conditions… The order is he be taken into custody, subject to conditions. I am saying the condition is erroneous amounting to defeating the order itself,”

The matter will now be heard on August 12.

Rashid was elected from the Baramulla constituency in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections and has been lodged in Tihar Jail since 2019 after the NIA arrested him under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act in the 2017 terror-funding case.

Rashid has been in jail since 2019 after he was charged by NIA under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act in alleged terror funding case.

Title: Abdul Rashid Sheikh v. NIA